Recently my online publishing venture BLORGE received some media coverage on ITJourno.com.au, a website targeting technology journalists. The story is republished here with permission of the author and the publisher MediaConnect.
Incidentally, my initial target for BLORGE in October 2006 was to reach 1 million pageloads by December 2008. We missed the target by just one month – not a bad effort I think.
Blogs no fad
by Tiffany Blatchford for Media News
As two of Australia’s most successful commercial blogs, Gizmodo and Tech Blorge are closing in on their own respective "million" milestones, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to dismiss blogs as a fad.
According to Blorge publisher John Pospisil, Tech Blorge will crack a million page impressions for the first time this month, and is now profitable.
"One of the decisions early on was to pursue Google AdSense as an initial revenue source," said Pospisil. "Over time, AdSense has become a viable source of revenue. Blorge’s editorial budget is several thousand dollars per month, which is paid for by revenue generated from AdSense."
Pospisil pointed out that CPM advertising network rates are ludicrously low compared to the revenue generated by AdSense, which he believes is an interesting development in the publishing industry.
Meanwhile, at Gizmodo HQ, Nick Broughall just celebrated his first full year in the editor’s chair at what is rated Australia’s highest-trafficked blog (in 2008, the site hit the number one spot on the Top 100 Australian Blogs Index).
During that time, Broughall has seen traffic grow by 200 per cent to more than 800,000 unique visitors per month, and now has the magical million uniques in his sights.
Gizmodo achieved 3.64 million page impressions for November last year alone, and Broughall believes the current popularity of commercial blogs may be attributed to a combination of "speed, volume and style.”
"A lot of our readers love us because of the tone we take, while others visit because we cover pretty much everything. And the blogging platform means we can have stories live pretty much as they happen," said Broughall.
In Pospisil’s opinion, the continued success of commercial blogs lies in their point of differentiation from the mainstream media.
"We aren’t afraid of presenting different voices and ideas," said Pospisil. "We develop content that’s a bit more edgy and interesting than you’ll find in the mainstream press, and people like that".